DrDave

I doubt Mr. Bocelli gets out of bed for less than 100k USD (3+ million baht).

Lazada has no problem processing payments made with my Bank of America Travel Rewards Visa card. This card has no foreign transaction fees, and earns points good for statement credits against anything travel-related. "Verified by Visa" isn't used on this card (although I've had it pop up on another bank's card in the past) and the exchange rate is very close to the rate that Wise offers for transfers. Every once in a while the card is declined by BofA when paying Lazada (usually when buying something for a large amount), but the bank immediately sends me an SMS asking if the charge is legitimate. Replying "yes" instantly clears the card for use, and I just re-process the payment at Lazada within seconds. I might add that this BofA Visa card has only my US address on file, and most of the time I'm in the US ordering products to be delivered to my daughter in Thailand.

That's true for *some* of the newer ATMs. It depends on the machine and how its been configured. I've also seen it configured in the opposite way on some machines where it won't dispense the cash until the card is removed. Then there's the variation of ATMs that only accept chip cards, which aren't held inside the machine at all.

Things have possibly changed over the past few years, but I was able to get a decent discount on a Pajero Sport (cash sale) several years ago. List price was 1,225,000 and I asked for all the freebies and a 60k discount. They countered with the freebies and a 40k discount, which I accepted. Now I need to buy a small car for our daughter, but don't think I'll get a similar deal this time around.

You've provided an excellent description of the difference between a spousal benefit and a survivor benefit - thank you. I had only addressed the survivor benefit (which is not capped at 50%) because the OP was asking about benefit entitlement after the American husband dies. Many people should find the spousal benefit information you provided helpful as well. You raise an interesting question... what sort of proof does the SSA accept regarding the 5 years of US residency after marriage?

Umm, last time I checked, "Russian" is not a race, it's a nationality.

A dehumidifier or AC running to take the moisture out of the air is your best bet. But...as mentioned before, if the apartment has any furniture of the thin laminate over particle board or MDF variety, the mold/mildew odor will likely remain as long as the furniture remains.

Not really much help since the official meter rates "negotiated" by the Phuket taxi mafia are about 3 times higher than those in Bangkok.

In general, after you die your wife is entitled to your SS benefit if she has been married to you a minimum of 5 years, and has lived in the US for a total of 5 years or more. She is entitled to your benefit amount at her full retirement age, with reductions taken for each year she begins to draw benefits prior to her full retirement age. Full retirement age is based upon her date of birth.

Fatboy's in Patong promotes their Sunday Roast and Saturday Ribs on Facebook every week, most recently 2 days ago. Appears to be still going strong: https://www.facebook.com/fatboys.cafe.restaurant

I can't help but wonder if maybe Prayuth was pressured into holding off on ordering Western vaccines, in favor of purchasing the A-Z vaccine from Siam BioScience when available.

I'm curious. Aside from bribing Immigration (as evidenced by the handover of money in excess of the extension fee mentioned in previous posts), what other service does an agent provide?

Reminds me of what happened to my Bangkok Bank account earlier this year. I've been in the US since the beginning of the lockdown (Jan 2020), and have never used my BBL debit/ATM card to purchase something either online or at a store, and no automatic payments are setup against this account. The only usage of the card has been in an ATM (always a Bangkok Bank ATM), and it has not been used since leaving Thailand in January 2020. This is an account that I use as a "slush fund", very rarely making deposits or withdrawals, so I was never diligent in checking the balance while in the US. I finally got around to checking my balance using the website in June of this year, and was shocked to find that my account had been nearly drained by deductions taken every 10-14 days starting in May 2021 (16 months after the last time the card was used). Each deduction was labeled as an "eCard" payment, however I have never requested or setup an eCard. Oddly enough, each payment was for the Thai Baht equivalent of $100USD. Further investigation revealed that the payments were facilitated though Google Payments, an app that I've never downloaded or setup. Obviously someone was able to link my account to their Google Payments account, so I filled out the required online forms for Google Payments to investigate. After 2 weeks, Google Payments responded with a terse message saying they could not find any evidence of fraud, so case closed. They wouldn't provide any additional information, such as who the payments were made to, or who was the owner of the Google Payments account that was used. Given that BBL doesn't have an online means to report fraud, a 12 hour time difference and potential language difficulties, I'm just going to consider this a learning experience. When I return to Thailand, I'll have a conversation with BBL about this, and cancel any sort of eCard as well as my ATM card. I do 99% of my banking with K-Bank, so not a big loss however I'd like to keep the BBL account active considering how difficult it can be for foreigners without a work permit to open an account.

TAT boss rules out going back to the old Thai tourism formula of crowded bars and nightlife. He insists the kingdom is instead pursuing a higher quality, more family-friendly market. So, how did that scheme work out in Phuket, where all bars had been closed and nightlife had been shut down? From July 1 through September, they got approximately 20% of the foreign tourists that TAT had projected, and international flight arrivals were operating at average passenger loads of 50% or less. Doesn't seem like a successful long-term strategy to me.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think the Thai government will be dropping the requirement of $100K insurance and a CoE anytime soon. Tourists leaving the country without paying for medical treatment has been a point of contention for quite some time (since well before Covid), and authorities have been very vocal about needing to fix this situation. I would assume that the government sees this as an ideal opportunity to impose their goal of mandatory health insurance for tourists, while positioning it as a Covid requirement. And, if $100k of general health insurance (including Covid coverage) is required, then I'd bet that the CoE will remain as a requirement since someone will need to ensure that every person traveling to Thailand has the correct insurance. The airlines aren't going to read the fine print of every passenger's insurance policy, so it'll be up to the Thai consulates - just as it is today.

The AZ vaccine comes packaged as 10 .5ml ready-to-use doses per vial. The vials aren't big enough to support a 5:1 dilution, so they're going to have to transfer the vaccine to a larger vial for dilution, and use all 50 doses within 6 hours. I doubt AZ would recommend this procedure.

I would try to do a little investigation into the ownership and voting rights of the individual units. A developer who is acting as the juristic person (manager) may be holding title to the majority of units, using them as rentals. If this is the case, then the other owners are obviously in the minority and technically have no say in the management of their condo.

Take a walk down the street to the nearest 7-Eleven, grab a handful of 30 baht heat-and-eat sandwiches and stick them in the bar's beer cooler. That along with a cheap microwave and problem solved!

Kata Beach. Never overcrowded, no hassle from beach vendors, easy and convenient parking, good reasonably priced beachfront restaurant on the southern end, clean water. Although I lived less than 3 minutes from Patong beach (which was good for daily walks), we always went over the hill to Kata for beach days.

As time goes on and more people become vaccinated, the number of "cases" will have less significance and the number of hospitalizations and deaths will become the main area of focus. As you say, Covid in some form will be with us for a very long time as long as vaccinations do not stop the transmission of the virus. With influenza, the number of infections (e.g. "cases") each year isn't tracked or regarded as important, even though in the US, 30,000 to 60,000 deaths per year were attributed to influenza in the years prior to Covid-19. Covid-19 and influenza are somewhat alike in the fact that they mutate over time and available vaccines help to reduce serious illness, however they do not stop transmission of the virus throughout the population. Given enough time, and enough of the population receiving effective vaccines, I'd expect Covid-19 to track somewhat similar to influenza in terms of serious illness and deaths year after year. As for non-human infections, zoos in the US are already finding Covid-19 infections in some of their animals.

That would be true if you considered the island of Phu Quoc to be all of Vietnam. The entire country will remain closed to tourism with the exception of Phu Quoc, which will open under a trial 6 month test.

It was actually 90 per week. They've since weaseled around that number to the point that virtually any number of infections won't have an impact upon the sandbox.

Not sure why you were having trouble with joints made with a biscuit joiner. You need to first prepare the joint with a jointer or router setup you described before placing the biscuits. The joint is glued up over the entire length, the biscuits just provide an extra measure of glue surface to a properly prepared and glued joint, plus they expand inside the slots for extra holding power.

If considering getting a quote for the basic shell, you'll need to be very specific in terms of what you expect the basic shell to include. Consider: Structural: footings, tile-ready cement floor, all exterior walls, all interior walls, windows (to your spec), exterior doors (to your spec), steel roof framing, roof materials (to your spec), soffits, ceiling insulation and gypsum, perimeter concrete. All walls rendered. Interior and exterior paint (if desired). Rough-ins: recessed electrical boxes, plastic conduit and wiring for all outlets and switches. Consumer box with circuit breakers, wire drops for recessed lighting, shower heaters, appliances and air conditioners, mains wiring and connection. Water and drain lines for all sinks, toilets and showers, septic system. Connection to water source. Electric and water meters. Water tank, pump and filtration rough-ins (if needed)

We built a small 2 bed 1 bath 68 m2 house for family about 12 years ago in the northern provinces. In this case, we got a quote for the labor, and then purchased all of the materials ourselves. Labor was fixed at 1,800 per m2 (126,000), and the cost of materials for the basic shell came to 224,000. (I kept detailed records of all the materials we bought). Finish was to a typical Thai standard (not something I would want for myself), and added only about 75,000 to the cost of the shell.